So those cells could have held the chemicals together long enough to form precursors to life?

Makes sense. And it's nice to have people thinking along those lines. Something would have had to concentrate the materials, and I can imagine that "real" cell walls could have formed after a while to protect the concentrations from the sulfides.

Looking at the world around me I can understand that DNA is such a rapacious predator of any energy source around, some Power did something, sometime.

And look at how, say, a mouse, or clam, or worm grows and develops I can't help but marvel at the system.

I'll bet that the human mind as it exists now will not be able to understand it all. There's no need for that understanding in order to reproduce, and our minds don't need to evolve to exploit pretty much all energy sources.

I'LL never know, anyway. Sort of comfortable to sink back into that knowledge, that there won't be that knowledge.

Great post, thanks.

Arf